Page 9 - University of Martland Nursing Forum - Winter 2017

EThe Power of Interprofessional Education
very week, I’m privileged heights and weights at every to step out of my role as visit, they could use it as a University of Maryland, lead-in to difficult questions Baltimore (UMB) president about diet and counsel patients
and spend a few hours doing what I accordingly. If they saw a rise
used to do every day: practice medicine. Each Tuesday afternoon, I see patients in my pediatric clinic. With me are students from all six of the University’s professional schools: nursing, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, law, and social work. For many, it’s their first practical exposure to interprofessional education, their first time working with colleagues across disciplines to provide the best care for patients and their families.
As you can imagine, the clinic gets rather crowded, but anyone who’s visited understands exactly who runs the show: Elsie Stines, DNP ’15, MS ’00, CRNP.
Dr. Stines is a pediatric nurse practitioner who manages the President’s Clinic, sees patients at the University of Maryland Medical Center, and serves as associate vice president
for special projects at UMB. I’ve
been fortunate to work with her
for many years.
Dr. Stines is a two-time alumna of the University of Maryland School of Nursing. In 2015, she earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice from the School. Her doctoral project was inspired by the President’s Clinic and the opportunities it provides for interprofessional education.
One day in clinic, Dr. Stines was talking about the fact that all health care providers—not just primary care physicians—should be discussing childhood obesity with patients and families. A dental student said he wasn’t confident in his ability to calculate childhood body mass index (BMI).
He said he wasn’t sure how he would even start a conversation about obesity.
Dr. Stines realized that if she were able to educate dental providers and students, they could be extraordinarily valuable in curbing the obesity epidemic. For instance, if dental providers checked
in BMI, they could offer some dietary recommendations and refer patients back to their pediatricians. If Dr. Stines drew up a script for these conversations, providers would be more likely to start them.
These observations became the basis of her doctoral project, Evaluation of a Childhood Obesity Screening Program in a Pediatric Dental Clinic. And now, long after completing the project, Dr. Stines continues to work with the School of Dentistry. She
lectures twice a year at the school. She brings colleagues with her, and they role-play with students, acting as providers and patients. And she’s found that dental students who previously thought they had no part to play in reducing childhood obesity now believe they do.
This is the power—and the promise— of interprofessional education, and Dr. Stines and I are privileged each week to see it in action.
—Jay A. Perman, MD President University of Maryland, Baltimore
Perman congratulates Stines on earning her DNP in May 2015.
NURSING, DEFINED
What is nursing informatics?
According to the American Nurses Association, it’s a “specialty that integrates nursing science with multiple information management and analytical sciences to identify, define, manage, and communicate data, information, knowledge, and wisdom in nursing practice. [It] supports nurses, consumers, patients, the interprofessional health care team, and other stakeholders in their decision-making in all roles and settings
to achieve desired outcomes. This support is accomplished through the use of information structures, information processes, and information technology.”
—Nursing Informatics: Scope and Standards of Practice, 2nd Edition, ANA 2015
The University of Maryland School of Nursing’s Nursing Informatics master’s specialty program is ranked No. 1 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.
Learn more: nursing.umaryland.edu/nursinginformatics. UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND SCHOOL OF NURSING 7
COURTESY OF JAY A. PERMAN